Remembering Rajiv Gandhi

Today marks the 63rd birth anniversary of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

R.K. BHATNAGAR

NEW VISION FOR INDIA: 23 years ago on October 31, 1984 at the tender age of 40, Rajiv Gandhi became the youngest Prime Minister of India, perhaps even one of the youngest elected heads of Government in the world.

His mother Indira Gandhi was eight years older when she first became Prime Minister in 1966. His illustrious grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was 58 when he started the long innings of 17 years as free India’s first Prime Minister.

As the harbinger of a generational change in the country, Rajiv Gandhi received the biggest mandate in the nation’s history.

Born on August 20, 1944 in Mumbai he was just three years old when India attained its independence with Jawaharlal Nehru at the helm of affairs.

His father Feroze Gandhi as a Lok Sabha Member had earned reputation as a fearless and hard working parliamentarian. Conscious of history, Rajiv told the nation in his first broadcast as Prime Minister, “the nation has placed a great responsibility on me by asking me to head the government - I shall be able to fulfil it only with your support and cooperation. I shall value your guidance in upholding the unity integrity and honour of the country”.

A cherished dream of Rajiv Gandhi was to build an India that was self-sufficient, self-reliant, strong, prosperous and modern in all aspects. He realized that the future of India depended on technological modernization, higher productivity and rapid advancement towards social justice.

Realising that agriculture was the mainstay of India’s economy, the young Prime Minister stressed the need for faster and even agricultural growth which required the extension of Green Revolution to the rain shadow regions.

His Technology Mission for Oil seeds and the National Project on pulses have taken shape out of this strong desire to achieve a turn around in agriculture sector.

Rajiv Gandhi was aware of the fact that inordinate delay in deliverance of justice was in a way tantamount to the denial of justice. But, he also knew that the courts were over-burdened with too many cases.

In order to relieve the pressure on courts, he gave a new thrust to the judicial system by introducing the Lok Adalats. His resolve to cleanse the public life from scourge of “Aayaa Rams and Gaya Rams” resulted in the Constitution (52nd Amendment) Act, 1985 popularly knows as Anti-Defection Law.

Rajiv Gandhi had tremendous confidence in the youth and expected much from them in the task of nation building. To give the youth of India a feeling of active participation in the democratic process, he lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 years. This way he brought almost 50 million young day dreamers into the electoral system.

He performed his role as the Leader of the Opposition in the most dignified and democratic way. Even though the Congress emerged as the largest single party in Lok Sabha in the 1989 General Elections, he preferred to sit on the opposition benches saying he did not have the clear popular mandate.

He was well-versed with the principles of parliamentary democracy and the role of strong Opposition even when he was Prime Minister as he always kept the interests of the nation above his personal or party interests.

Rajiv Gandhi was a great humanitarian. He joined politics due to twists of fate and history. Ramji Bhai, a refugee from Pakistan migrated to Delhi after partition and set up a tailoring shop in Connaught Place.

Ramji Bhai recalls that when Rajiv visited his shop in 1964 after the death of his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, he thought him for an American boy. Even as a pilot in Indian Airlines he continued to visit Cassino Tailors owned by Ramji Bhai.

‘Rajiv Baba always liked simple and plain clothes’, Ramji Bhai recalls as he proudly recollects the sweet and unassuming nature of Rajiv even after becoming Prime Minister.

Niramala Deshpande, noted social worker and Gandhian feels Rajiv Gandhi and his family are highly religious but not in the traditional sense.

“Rajiv did not believe in rituals but was deeply religious. Both Rajiv and Sonia respected all religions and celebrated festivals like Diwali, Holi and Dusshera. Sonia planned for the festivals like a traditional Indian daughter-in-law. I would say Sonia is more Indian, more Hindu than any other Indian daughter-in-law”.

R. Venkataraman was close to Rajiv during his days as Vice President and President. Generational gap did not come in the way of their friendship. “Rajiv is a brave and dedicated son of India,” says RV, as the former president is known in his close circle of friends and admirers.

It is unfortunate that a Rajiv’s eventful public life came to an abrupt end on 21 May, 1991 at Sriperambudur, near Chennai, when he was on his come back trail.

(The writer is a former press secretary to the President of India.)

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